Subject: [mg60108] Would a code generator from dynamic systems be feasible and useful?

From: Ivan Martinez <spam at your.mum>

Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 02:05:57 -0400 (EDT)

Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hello everybody,
I have developed a code generator from dynamic systems represented as
block diagrams:
http://dslib.sourceforge.net/
Right now I'm making a study of how it would be possible to adapt such
code generator to programs like Mathematica, etc., and
whether it would be useful. The problem is that I have serious doubts
about it with Mathematica. Let me explain you why.
AFAIK, there isn't any Simulink-like application for Mathematica,
rather libraries of tools for control analysis. Since there isn't any
Simulink, there isn't any equivalent to its ".mdl" files to represent
dynamic systems. And therefore, dynamyc systems are defined in
Mathematica language without any specific form. And the difficulty is,
that it seems too complex to parse a Mathematica program to make the
block diagram of a dynamic system from it.
It also seems that Mathematica can't perform online analysis. I mean,
one usually generates code from a dynamic system to execute that code in
realtime in some hardware system. But I don't think Mathematica can
monitor such execution with "realtime" plotting or parameter tweaking. I
haven't found any driver for any hardware input or output, either.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thank you in advance.
Ivan Martinez